ABSTRACT
Tin continued to be subject to control for another 50 years after the end of the ITC. In the immediate postwar period two political imperatives ruled: economic reconstruction of Western Europe and contingency planning against World War III. Tin played an important role in both but the terms on which producers participated were largely dictated by the United States government. Once these objectives were realized in the early 1950s, it retreated from the industry, leaving the producers to confront the problems it bequeathed. To deal with them, producers turned to a new kind of commodity agreement. From 1956 to 1985, the International Tin Council brought producers and consumers together to develop a common policy. The experience of the Council, the source of the problem it inherited and of that it, in turn, left to the industry is the focus of this chapter.
